Pinside Edition
by Scrawlers
Summary: Fortunately, the Tin Pin heist at Molco's slam-off gave Joshua plenty to write about, even with his quickly approaching deadline.


**Disclaimer: **_The World Ends With You _isn't mine. I'm just taking over Joshua's column since he didn't feel like meeting his deadline, and I didn't want Makoto to have a stroke.

**Authors' Note: **I did a search of "Pinside Edition" and "Pinhead Weekly" to see if anyone else had already done this, and nothing came up. If someone HAS done it, and FF.N's search is just full of fail (like usual), then I apologize for stepping on anyone's toes. But, it didn't look like anyone had done it, and I wanted something to wake up my brain a bit before I wrote any new chapters to any of my other stories, so I figured to do this. As you can probably tell, **MAJOR SPOILERS **for the Tin Pin plot of _Another Day_. Normally I don't add spoiler tags - because really, if you're in the fanfiction category, you should know it's at your own risk and you should have finished the game - but because not everyone might go for _Another Day _and its cracktastic awesomeness, I'll add it this one time.

Because SOMEONE had to make the deadline, and I figured my old opinion column skills should be put to use SOMEHOW . . .

* * *

Pinside Edition

**The Slammurai of the Rainbow**_  
by Joshua Kiryu_

Otherwise known as the Kindred Spirits.

As many of you know, the slam-off hosted at Molco this past weekend was interrupted by a heist of epic proportions. Posing as slam-off staff, an organization dubbing themselves "The Black Skullers" attacked during the finals, robbing the finalists - as well as plenty of other faithful slammurai - of their pins. As one of the finalists, I was one of the slammurai robbed, and at first, I believed my pins to be lost forever.

This was not to be the case.

Moments after the Black Skullers made their exit, I was approached by fifth-grade Tin Pin Champion Shuto "Shooter" Dan. Unlike most of the distraught slammurai, grieving over the loss of their pins, Shooter was not about to succumb to his grief. He was not about to fall to the ground in a sobbing heap. He wasn't even about to freak out, screaming to the heavens for answers as to why his pins were stolen. Instead, he was gathering the most noble of the slammurai, the most determined of the warriors. He was using his keen eyes and true spirit to gather slammurai in an elite group known as the Kindred Spirits.

Other than myself, Shooter gathered three other slammurai from the outset (though I will use our codenames to protect their identities): Yellow, Green, and Tin Pin finalist Black 'n' Blue. Together, we made our way to the secret base to meet with Dr. Pin, and work out a plan to trap the Black Skullers, and take back our souls (for the privacy of Dr. Pin, I will not reveal the base, especially since there may be reason to reunite the Kindred Spirits in the future). Since Black 'n' Blue's pins hadn't been stolen, we decided to use him as bait; we would play Tin Pin around Shibuya, win plenty of games, and attract the attention of the Black Skullers.

Now, one thing that would be key to note here is that Black 'n' Blue didn't remain Black 'n' Blue for the entirety of the mission. While Green remained Green, Yellow remained Yellow, Shooter remained Red and I remained Pink (the color of love, due to my loving nature), Black 'n' Blue was demoted to just Blue when we picked up another would-be Kindred Spirit: Black. She had a pleasant smile and seemingly upbeat nature, but when the Black Skullers finally approached us - in the form of the "booth babe," Higashizawa - Black turned out to be a traitor. She broke Shooter's Red Kaiser - effectively putting him out of commission, for while his pins are his soul, Shooter's Red Kaiser is his _heart _- and rejoined the Black Skullers, leaving despite apparently having past history with Yellow. Temporarily defeated, we returned to our secret base, where Dr. Pin gave us new slamming gear, and sent us on our way again (I called dibs on the rainbow, if you're curious, since there was no pink and the rainbow suited my multi-faceted personality anyway).

After a decidedly epic showdown with the Black Skullers, the true reason behind the heist was revealed: Higashizawa, one of the original founders of Tin Pin, had lost the heart and soul required to undertake the quest that is the slammurai's adventure to battle his skills and prove his heart. Believing everyone else unworthy due to his own lost path, Higashizawa formed the Black Skullers in an attempt to rid the game of what he believed to be commercialized ego. But during our battle, he realized what the rest of us already knew; Tin Pin's heart isn't simply within the pins themselves, but within the slammurai that use the pins.

And after my own adventures with the Kindred Spirits, I had that reaffirmed for me as well.

As much as Tin Pin is about the game, it's even more about the players - the slammurai that pour the heart and the soul into each individual pin. When you first pick up a pack of Tin Pins off the shelf, they don't have any soul in them. They're cold, empty, heartless - they're just like any other button or pin you might find. It's after you open the pack and pour a little bit of yourself into the pins that they become special - that they become unique and full of life and energy. It's the same reason why modded pins never win; modded pins have been warped, they've been corrupted and tainted and aren't full of as much pure heart and soul that an honorable slammurai's pins are.

Those who saw us running around Shibuya that day might have thought that we were just a bunch of crazy kids playing a random game. They might have thought we'd just "read off the Crayon box" before embarking on our adventure. But I - as well as the rest of my fellow Kindred Spirits - know better. We were fighting for truth, fighting for justice, and fighting for our _souls_, as any true Tin Pin Slammurai would have. And no matter how much time passes, I have a feeling that each and every one of us - and millions of slammers who did not get the chance to fight with us this time - would pick up our pins and do it again at a pin drop, with all the passion that we gave during our original quest.

That is, after all, what Tin Pin is _really _about.

Until next time, dear readers. Slam on.


End file.
